Casta Diva Original Key

[SeattleJohn]

Who, besides Joan Sutherland, sang Casta Diva in the original key ( C#
I believe)? I'm sure Sills could have.

[J]

According to the Met Guide to Recorded Opera, the autograph score has
it in G, but Pasta, who created the role, sang it in F, and that is
"now standard." Of the recorded artists covered in their survey, only
Sutherland and Sills perform the aria in G; Callas, Suliotis, and
Scotto take the transposed version. (Others are not specifically
cited, but I assume Caballe takes the lower key.)

[rich...@gmail.com]

I have a recollection of reading that at times it was sung in the
higher key in the middle of the 19th century, but I think that has
always been a conceit. Pasta coudln't manage it in any key, and my
recollection is that even in the first run of perfornances she was
substituting something else for the aria. after her first disasterous
performance. There really is no 'historical accuracy' in this case to
singing it in the original key, and in fact if you were going to be
historically accurate to that first performance, you'd sing it about a
quarter step below the orchestra, which is apparently what Pasta did.
Her intonation continued to slide and within a few years (read
Stendhal) she was almost consistent flat.

[Jonathan Ellis]

I'm fairly sure that G major was the original key, because it fits *tonally*
better than F major. If the soprano can reach it, that is.

For the following reasons:

(1) Norma's opening recitative, just before the aria, finishes on a chord
of A flat (admittedly as the dominant of D flat major, following much
modulation.)
- If the aria is put in G major, then the first harmony of the orchestral
introduction would be A flat (first inversion) - which morphs into
"neapolitan" 6th chord setting up an apparent G minor (hinted at in bar 2)
which then sidesteps further into the major (bar 3).
- If the aria is in F major, then obviously this is all a tone down, and
there's no musical good reason for skipping from the A-flat chord ending the
recitative to the G-flat chord beginning the aria.

(2) After the aria, the trumpets interrupt on a repeated G (concert pitch -
introducing a section in E flat major). This makes MUCH more sense if the
aria itself was in G major rather than F.

"rich...@hotnail.com" <rich...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:57c0e4a8-5a82-4287...@o10g2000vby.googlegroups.com...

[rich...@gmail.com]

On Sep 7, 12:41 pm, "Jonathan Ellis" <jle30...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm fairly sure that G major was the original key, because it fits *tonally*
> better than F major. If the soprano can reach it, that is.
>
> For the following reasons:
>
>  (1) Norma's opening recitative, just before the aria, finishes on a chord
> of A flat (admittedly as the dominant of D flat major, following much
> modulation.)
>  - If the aria is put in G major, then the first harmony of the orchestral
> introduction would be A flat (first inversion) - which morphs into
> "neapolitan" 6th chord setting up an apparent G minor (hinted at in bar 2)
> which then sidesteps further into the major (bar 3).
>  - If the aria is in F major, then obviously this is all a tone down, and
> there's no musical good reason for skipping from the A-flat chord ending the
> recitative to the G-flat chord beginning the aria.
>
>  (2) After the aria, the trumpets interrupt on a repeated G (concert pitch -
> introducing a section in E flat major). This makes MUCH more sense if the
> aria itself was in G major rather than F.
>

> "richer...@hotnail.com" <richer...@gmail.com> wrote in message

>
> news:57c0e4a8-5a82-4287...@o10g2000vby.googlegroups.com...
> On Sep 7, 10:05 am, J <jmel...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> > According to the Met Guide to Recorded Opera, the autograph score has
> > it in G, but Pasta, who created the role, sang it in F, and that is
> > "now standard." Of the recorded artists covered in their survey, only
> > Sutherland and Sills perform the aria in G; Callas, Suliotis, and
> > Scotto take the transposed version. (Others are not specifically
> > cited, but I assume Caballe takes the lower key.)
>
> I have a recollection of reading that at times it was sung in the
> higher key in the middle of the 19th century, but I think that has
> always been a conceit. Pasta coudln't manage it in any key, and my
> recollection is that even in the first run of perfornances she was
> substituting something else for the aria. after her first disasterous
> performance. There really is no 'historical accuracy' in this case to
> singing it in the original key, and in fact if you were going to be
> historically accurate to that first performance, you'd sing it about a
> quarter step below the orchestra, which is apparently what Pasta did.
> Her intonation continued to slide and within a few years (read
> Stendhal) she was almost consistent flat.

No, you are first of all absolutely right that it was written in G. I
think that when I said it was a conceit it wasn't clear - I meant it
was a conceit for performers to do it since in essence it was never
done. You are saying that harmonically it still makes more sense, and
you are completely persuasive.. I am looking at the score on line now,
and I think that the brass coming on on the open Gs after the aria is
very telling; you wouldn't have any immediate sense of disruption in
key if the aria had been sung in G, though you'd get that very quickly
by the end of the second measure. I don't think I am jarred so much by
the transposition into the aria through the Gb arpeggiation, and your
ear (and your analytic skills) are keener there than mine by far to
hear it. Your comment makes absolute musical sense, but for whatever
reason I don't hear it as jarring going in, and I think it has
something to do with the move into the F major over the three bars,
but I may also just be rationalizing not hearing it. Many thanks.

[rich...@gmail.com]

On Sep 7, 10:08 pm, Terry <b...@clown.invalid> wrote:
> On Thu, 8 Sep 2011 02:41:18 +1000, Jonathan Ellis wrote
> (in article <j486rr$hv...@speranza.aioe.org>):

>
>
>
>
>
> > I'm fairly sure that G major was the original key, because it fits *tonally*
> > better than F major. If the soprano can reach it, that is.
>
> > For the following reasons:
>
> >  (1) Norma's opening recitative, just before the aria, finishes on a chord
> > of A flat (admittedly as the dominant of D flat major, following much
> > modulation.)
> >  - If the aria is put in G major, then the first harmony of the orchestral
> > introduction would be A flat (first inversion) - which morphs into
> > "neapolitan" 6th chord setting up an apparent G minor (hinted at in bar 2)
> > which then sidesteps further into the major (bar 3).
> >  - If the aria is in F major, then obviously this is all a tone down, and
> > there's no musical good reason for skipping from the A-flat chord ending the
> > recitative to the G-flat chord beginning the aria.
>
> >  (2) After the aria, the trumpets interrupt on a repeated G (concert pitch -
> > introducing a section in E flat major). This makes MUCH more sense if the
> > aria itself was in G major rather than F.
>

> > "richer...@hotnail.com" <richer...@gmail.com> wrote in message

> >news:57c0e4a8-5a82-4287...@o10g2000vby.googlegroups.com...
> > On Sep 7, 10:05 am, J <jmel...@verizon.net> wrote:
> >> According to the Met Guide to Recorded Opera, the autograph score has
> >> it in G, but Pasta, who created the role, sang it in F, and that is
> >> "now standard." Of the recorded artists covered in their survey, only
> >> Sutherland and Sills perform the aria in G; Callas, Suliotis, and
> >> Scotto take the transposed version. (Others are not specifically
> >> cited, but I assume Caballe takes the lower key.)
>
> > I have a recollection of reading that at times it was sung in the
> > higher key in the middle of the 19th century, but I think that has
> > always been a conceit. Pasta coudln't manage it in any key, and my
> > recollection is that even in the first run of perfornances she was
> > substituting something else for the aria. after her first disasterous
> > performance. There really is no 'historical accuracy' in this case to
> > singing it in the original key, and in fact if you were going to be
> > historically accurate to that first performance, you'd sing it about a
> > quarter step below the orchestra, which is apparently what Pasta did.
> > Her intonation continued to slide and within a few years (read
> > Stendhal) she was almost consistent flat.
>

> Interesting notes. Thank you. It has occurred to me, triggered by the comment
> "If the soprano can reach it, that is.", that the pitch standard might have
> been lower then, making it easier generally for sopranos to handle the G
> major version. Must do some research. (I recall reading that in the first
> half of the 19th century, woodwind players had to carry a collection of spare
> joints enabling them to cope with the different pitches they encountered from
> place to place.)
>
> --
> Cheers!
>
> Terry- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

There is lots of controversy on pitch, but it seems to have been
somewhere between a quarter and half step lower in Italy (for the most
part) in the first part of the 19th century

Everything, though, conspired against any real appreciation of good
intonation. The woodwind systems weren't yet equally 'tuned' for all
keys (that comes in the Boehm a little later on - Mozart wrote that
there was nothing so out of tune as one flute as another flute),
strings were not wound over steel but were all gut, you had
tremendous differrence in 'climate control' in performing spaces, and
in fact the "A" varied from place to place. There was simply no
consistency (or ability to rehear by recordings, obviously).

Maretzek, who worked under Berlioz in London in the late 1840s at
Drury Lane, has a great story about Berlioz conducting Lucia with
Dorus-Gras as soprano. She had rehearsed (or planned for) both parts
of the mad scene in F (we hear it now in Eb), although the orchestra,
Matzerek notes, had various parts in F, E and Eb, because sopranos
sang it in all keys. On the night of performance, she felt unwell and
told Berlioz she would need to take it down a half step. Well, that's
what he told the orchestra - take it down a half step (without saying
which key they should be playing it in) - which they all did, from the
respective parts they had (some had it written in F, some in E and
some in Eb). The result was predictable.

I have always believed that if we heard a lot of the orchestras of the
time, we'd hear something much closer to the Hoffnung Orchestra than
anything we think we know.

My impression from reading a bit about the first Past Norma was that
it wasn't so much the high notes that were the specific problem as the
fact that the intonation in the middle kept sagging.

[edo...@gmail.com]

On Sep 7, 10:05 am, J <jmel...@verizon.net> wrote:

Yes, Caballe did sing the lower key always. I think Sutherland and
Sills are the only sopranos I heard live sing it in the original
higher key.

I saw what I think was Sills' first Norma in Boston in 1970, and Pat
Brooks was the soprano Adalgisa. The entire opera was sung in the
original written keys, including both big Norma/Adalgisa duets, which
also are traditionally lowered a full tone, including Sutherland at
the Met, probably due to her mezzo partners.

I believe the recent performance with Angela Meade featured all the
music in the original keys, also, so I would have to add her to the
short list of Sutherland and Sills.

Ed

[jch...@gmu.edu]

Hello, I know this has nothing to do with "Casta Diva" but I have a question in regards to the popular trio: "Oh di qual sei tu vittima". In the version that Sutherland, Horne, and Pavarotti sang, what is up with the Adalgisa repeated vocal theme? I can't seem to find a score with that part in it or any history about the piece. Was this in Bellini's autographed score? I attached the video and the section that I am referring to is @1:11 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xzam7jvbx-c Thanks!!!

[chsiii]

I have an Boosey's 1st edition of the piano-vocal score, 1848, and it
presents the trio as you have described it, with each principal enjoying the
full statement of the first part.

Other sections of the opera have been truncated over the years - the trio
concluding Act II is usually savaged (12 or so measures is missing from the
concert performance to which you alluded), and one entire cadenza section of
the first Norma-Adalgisa duet is always omitted. In the 1848 edition, all
the keys are what we now call the "high" keys. "Casta diva" is in G, "Mira
o Norma" in F. The 1st Sutherland recording is complete, and the original
keys are used - already a bit of a strain for Madame Horne, but I'm glad she
did it.

wrote in message
news:728565f6-4914-48b7...@googlegroups.com...

[madorga...@gmail.com]

The original is in F it's in that key in the orchestral score

[Jonathan Ellis]

<madorga...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:af643692-9f90-45dd...@googlegroups.com...

> The original is in F it's in that key in the orchestral score

In *which* orchestral score?

Harmonically, in the context of what comes before and after, it would
make a lot more sense in G. I believe Bellini originally designed it in
that key, implying that it must at some point have been transposed down.
This may, of course, have been before the first publication (I don't
know whether this pre-dated or post-dated the first actual performance):
so whether it was published in F doesn't necessarily mean it was
originally conceived in that key in the composer's mind.

But the musical evidence for an original conception in G is as follows:

(1) It's preceded by a cadence in A-flat major. The number opens on a
first-inversion chord - of G-flat major (B-flat in the bass), used as a
neapolitan-2nd for a modulation, over the next few bars, to F major,
before the flute introduces the actual tune of the aria. This might
conceivably make considerably more musical sense if the whole were a
tone up - if the orchestral cadence in A-flat were followed by a
first-inversion chord of A-flat major (C in the bass) used as a
neapolitan-2nd for modulation to G major.

(2) The aria is followed by trumpets blaring out on... a unison G
(concert pitch), which becomes the mediant of the following section in
E-flat major. The G in question is a blatantly unnecessary discord
following on from the aria in F, but a perfectly natural continuation
following on if the aria were in G.

(3) There was a good deal less reverence towards the idea of an
"original text" back in those days, compared to now. One of the things
about "opera by numbers" - that could be separated into discrete
sections, aria, chorus, ensemble, recitative - was the ease of
transposing a given section up or down as necessary. Rossini provided
alternative recitative harmonisations at a section in "The Barber of
Seville" (not difficult to do with only the harpsichord for company) to
allow, for example, for "La Calunnia" to be sung in its now-customary C
major, although it was originally composed in D. Later on, Verdi wrote
"Di quella pira" from Il Trovatore in C major, but there are places
where with a shift or two of harmony, the aria can be shifted down a
semitone or even a whole tone - no less a tenor than Caruso routinely
sang it in B-flat rather than C. (And, indeed, to this day, the New York
Met routinely plays the aria in B major - which apparently, a few years
ago, completely surprised one stand-in tenor, at the point of transition
about twenty bars prior to the actual beginning of the aria, where he
sang "Mia madre!" on an A-natural (unaccompanied by orchestra) as Verdi
had written, but the orchestra and soprano came in on an A-flat in the
following bar... the tenor recovered very well but it took him a few
bars to adjust: obviously *he* had practiced for the aria to be in the
original key, and he was standing in for a tenor who had planned to
transpose it down...)

-- Jonathan.

[chsiii]

In my T. Boosey & Co. 1848 vocal score of Norma, Casta Diva is in G major.
Sutherland was famous in her early career for doing this aria in the
original key.

wrote in message
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[chsiii]

Your observations on the "Casta diva" key are correct. In my 1848 Boosey
score, which is actually a reprint of the first Boosey edition, dating from
the 1830's, "Casta diva" is printed in G major.

In Trovatore, Manrico's words at the high A, where the modulation is often
effected, are "suo figlio!", not "mia madre".




"Jonathan Ellis" wrote in message news:ld0g7n$bu0$1...@speranza.aioe.org...

[Jonathan Ellis]

Ah. Sorry, my memory went wrong - I forgot whether he said "I am her
son" or "she is my mother", it was one or the other :-)

-- Jonathan
.
"chsiii" <chs...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:-LqdnZ_Kc-rWj2nP...@earthlink.com...

[Damian R]

On IMSLP there's a manuscript score (not sure if it's Bellini's own MS)
which has it in F major.

Damian R

"chsiii" wrote in message
news:hIqdnZ0VIeXXk2nP...@earthlink.com...

[chsiii]

Indeed, this early manuscript does show Casta Diva in F. However, in his
book "The Opera Lover's Companion" Charles Osborne (a scholar on singers and
musical matters of the bel canto period) writes:

"The title role was conceived for the Italian soprano Giuditta Pasta, who
some months earlier had created the role of Amina in Bellini's La
sonnambula. Pasta made comments to the composer on her music as it was
being written. At first she disliked her aria, "Casta diva", but Bellini
asked her to practice it every day for a week, promising to rewrite it if
after she still thought it ill-suited to her voice. In the event, he did
not have to make any changes to it, and Pasta's performance of "Casta diva"
became famous throughout Europe. (Bellini's original key of G major was too
high for her, so she transposed both the aria and its cabaletta down to F,
the key in which they are now usually performed.)"


"Damian R" wrote in message news:lZSdner_pbBycGnP...@bt.com...

[elena...@gmail.com]

Is the “Mira o Norma” duet between Norma and Adalgisa ever sung in Eb. What is the history with that? What key is traditional? I’ve only heard it in F but a mezzo friend wants to sing it with me in Eb but I have never heard anyone do it in that key and wouldn’t it be embarrassing if someone from the audience knew and thought we couldn’t sing it in F so why sing it at all. Any comments?

[razzking]

On Wednesday, March 6, 2019 at 11:50:52 AM UTC-6, elena...@gmail.com wrote:
> Is the “Mira o Norma” duet between Norma and Adalgisa ever sung in Eb. What is the history with that? What key is traditional? I’ve only heard it in F but a mezzo friend wants to sing it with me in Eb but I have never heard anyone do it in that key and wouldn’t it be embarrassing if someone from the audience knew and thought we couldn’t sing it in F so why sing it at all. Any comments?

I looked up some sheet music and they all have it shown as being in "F"

[razzking]

A one semi-tone transposition will likely not be noticed. If there's one person in the crown with that good an ear, it'll be literally ONE person. One semi-tone is not exactly real cheating. Are you all trying to sell yourselves as "gen-yew-INE", big time opera singers?. If so you might be flirting with trouble. If not, 1 semi-tone won't get you in the papers.

[razzking]

D'OH! Meant to say TWO-SEMI TONES

[Dale Shepherd]

Don't know if this thread is still alive. It's actually easier to find Mira o Norma performed in Eb, going back to at least Callas. I'm more surprised when I hear it performed in F. I saw it at the Met in 2013 and it was in Eb, but then they brought it back in with Radvanovsky (whom I saw in 2013) and Joyce DiDonato and it was performed in F. I didn't see that one live, so I don't remember the year.